once more, schlep for Man….
July 29, 2008
(Picture of attractive woman reading a book)….Booker longlist announced….blah de blah….Salman Rushdie….Booker of Bookers….gullible reading public….(subs – strike that last bit)….a Booker blog a day keeps the philistines at bay….filler, filler….first time novelist….(subs – insert picture of random First Time Novelist here)….(ed – how many words did you say?)….post-colonial literature….not since the first Booker contest in (subs – please check & insert date)….rhubarb, rhubarb….nostalgic depiction of childhood….echoes of magical realism….cross-generational story….English-speaking world….ying tong yiddle i po….boost for small publishers….fresh voices….Booker shortlist announced….(subs – insert picture of group of attractive women reading some Booker novel or other here)….should have been on the shortlist….multicultural/globalisation….doo wah diddy diddy dum diddy doo….sumptuously layered text….surprising inclusion on the shortlist….and the winner is….(ed – will this do?)….here at the Hay Festival….(subs – insert picture of deckchair here and loop back to the beginning)….
July 29, 2008 at 7:27 pm
Personally, I don’t think there’s such a thing as too many articles about the fucking Booker fucking Prize…sigh…
July 29, 2008 at 8:04 pm
And in the Booker Handicap Hurdles John Sutherland today romped home a solid thirty minutes before the much fancied Claire Armitstead, the pre-race favourite. Said Sutherland: “I really feel I deserved this. It’s fucking hard finding anything original to say about this stupid prize at this stage. Thank God that fucker John Banville wasn’t nominated or I’d have been to sodding angry to file any copy.”
July 29, 2008 at 8:18 pm
Jeebus, you really are cynical, steve. How could anyone seriously question the validity and sheer importantness of the brilliant excellent Booker Prize?
July 29, 2008 at 8:31 pm
Would Sir care for a Booker Prize?
Here we are; try this for size;
What’s that, it’s binding in the crotch?
Another drink, Sir? Was that a Scotch?
July 29, 2008 at 9:27 pm
You just know that there will be a big bunch of list-discussing blogs to come….before, eventually, someone who’s actually read the books will write about them (which may or may not be interesting; but at least it stands a chance of being original and informative….) Poor Sam is being chained to his desk at this very moment….
July 29, 2008 at 10:05 pm
Sometimes I have enigmatic lists that would do nicely for publication. And since the Grauniad pays £271.14 per 100 words, I might doctor a shopping list or two.
Viz:
Thursday.
Bone for dog
Lambent (?) paper
Bog rolls
Go to tip
Energise daughter
Loaf (with bits on top)
Eat little
Phone window man
Phone council about dog waste
Good whisky
Loaf.
See about eyes
Rebuke neighbour
(etc)
July 29, 2008 at 10:52 pm
Friday:
Calabrese
Garden peas
Aubergines
French beans
Parsnips
Asparagus tips
Lamb
Spam
Plaice
Dace
A lemon or a couple of limes
Now find a recipe that rhymes,
July 29, 2008 at 10:53 pm
I got Stephen Hawking to read out your piece. I’m not going to track down the Ying Tong song and Doo Wah Diddy and make him say them repeatly.
July 29, 2008 at 10:53 pm
now, not not
July 29, 2008 at 11:37 pm
I’ll wager Hawking does a mean version of “Bohemian Rhapsody” too….can you multitrack with this reading software….?
July 29, 2008 at 11:43 pm
Spoke to Minerva yesterday and need to correct. Her last name is not McGonagall, she said Google. She was offered a post originally at Swineborne, turned it down, the pigs there were feral, of course bearing no relation to anything at Hogwart.
Her discourses at the various schools where she taught at, were with elves, pixies, angels,etc. i.e. only the positive invisibles. Horrified at tbos’s headless one or stump? Shouldn’t read Harry Potter tbos. Minerva couldn’t remember the half blood prince being at any of her schools; more confusion with Harry Potter? Minerva only ever dealt with stars, glitter and suchlike.
A check with all my personalities show that none of them ever read any of Harry Potter’s books; there is a video on my shelf of the first movie, kept here for children; I’ve never viewed.
I notice Mishari claims he’s never read the books either. Who did?
Steve, check with Michel, you may find the Sorcerer’s Stone, that could be where the problem lies; perhaps unknowingly Michel has been polishing.
Oh and dare I say; a local regional free paper this week has two full pages of, wait for it…..Wombats!
July 29, 2008 at 11:52 pm
‘She was offered a post originally at Swineborne, turned it down, the pigs there were feral, of course bearing no relation to anything at Hogwart.’
Frances, how I do miss you when you stay away for too long.
July 29, 2008 at 11:53 pm
. . . and dgg, how do your smileys grin so much wider than mine do?
July 29, 2008 at 11:58 pm
July 30, 2008 at 12:08 am
and that “B” Baron Mowbray too
Its just likely we’re sending gramma across this year…..wait for it!
July 30, 2008 at 12:48 am
BTW wordnerd, trying to pick your identity. still figuring freepoland and sundry others; Oh, I believe they were allotted to you, you had no choice.
Motto of Minerva’s school was “Don’t disturb the Ant’s Nest”, somewhat similar to that of Hogwart.
I know one of my crew had the chessboard; we were playing a different game though, with different forfeits. Didn’t know you were playing? Well take comfort, I didn’t know I was either, however – I remember stating – “In the heavens sat they down, the chessboard on the table, the pieces set to play”..
Having trouble with gramma; she says it’s too far to travel.
July 30, 2008 at 1:01 am
Frances – one thing we don’t do here is reveal real identities; at least not those of posters here. I’ll delete anything contravening that basic tenet.
July 30, 2008 at 1:15 am
Doggerelist,
their identity in the game! Or do you mean their identity in the game is their real identity?
July 30, 2008 at 1:22 am
Which game? (Or should that be witch game?)
July 30, 2008 at 1:50 am
Doggerelist,
That sounds nasty. None of mine have anything to do with witches; so tell me do you know of some visiting here?
July 30, 2008 at 1:55 am
Oh and by way doggerelist, I spent months figuring out what was going on, I just evolved my game in response to what I thought the rest of you were playing; never really sure.
July 30, 2008 at 2:10 am
Except that some here are pseudonymous, Frances, things here are pretty much WYSIWYG….the only games are played out in verse….if I’m wrong about that, then the joke’s on me….
July 30, 2008 at 2:23 am
dgg, thanks for solving the funny face mystery . . . This link is for Michele – a massive and first-rate article that led yesterday’s science section in the NYT . . . about one medium in which she does her often dazzling work: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/29/science/29glass.html?pagewanted=all
The necklace you posted on flickr was extraordinarily elegant and sumptuous-looking.
Frances, I am delighted to be confused with someone who writes posts as compelling as freepoland’s, and s/he certainly thinks as I do about the fate of the clerihootenanny. . . Must say that before poor NaturalBornBlogger got into scalding water for playing tit-fot-tat, I had the strangest feeling that he was . . . ahem, . . .’channelling’ nearly every single thought of mine about the rhymes and rhymers, . . . but _how_?
Which reminds me, dgg, this is my second attempt in an hour to post here. The first time, something on your site gave my computer a fit. You aren’t by any chance using some new-fangled traffic analysis software, are you? . . . Last week when something similar happened on Cif, my anti-virus programme announced that the machine had a Trojan invader. When I looked up the monster’s name on the net, Google said it’s something new that is usually lurking in malicious advertising scripts.
July 30, 2008 at 2:46 am
wordnerd – this site is just bog-standard WordPress, with no plug-ins or add-ons. Shouldn’t be any ads either – although I wouldn’t see them if there were. (Furthermore, I presume WP only places ads on highly popular sites, which would rule me out….) So can’t see how this site could cause a problem. Mishari said on the previous thread here that Cif runs Javascript; WP doesn’t allow it, and they host this site on their own servers. Maybe Mishari has further thoughts on your problem?
Soooooo….does your comment mean you’re tangentially fessing up to NBB or just muddying the waters again….?
July 30, 2008 at 3:46 am
Bit tired of that deep blue icon, so have changed.
Doggerelist, re your 22, have you read the Potter books or have you viewed Wiki’s entries on such; even the slugs! Then tell me I am wrong to surmise as I do. Are you telling me you are innocent? Are Melton, Mishari and Freepoland innocent? tbos carrying around a head – view the almost headless one, tbos unicorn on GU and the stump, then see that the Potter character does not have the head totally severed.
Jings and I think they tried to ban Grimms tales?
July 30, 2008 at 5:49 am
‘have you read the Potter books or have you viewed Wiki’s entries on such; even the slugs!’
Frances, would you mind if I send this fragment of your writing off to be obookied? It’s too deep for me, I’m afraid. What — or I suppose who — do you mean by ‘even the slugs’? And what are they supposed to have done?
Are you in training to be the James Joyce of this site?
I hope that isn’t too many questions. Okay, three. I just counted.
July 30, 2008 at 6:01 am
Sorry, Frances, that should have been, . . . ‘if I sent this fragment,’ etc., . . .
dgg,
‘does your comment mean you’re tangentially fessing up to NBB or just muddying the waters again….?’
Fessing up to him? What do you want me to admit to him? That it didn’t take me five seconds to guess who he was?
. . . Yes I knew about Cif and evil JavaScript. I’m always irritated by having to turn it on to read the comments there . . . Oh, and I’m sure WP is up to something here. The malware or market research software — I’m not sure there’s a difference, for anyone who cares about privacy — wouldn’t let me type into this comment box. Wouldn’t let me do a thing, in fact.
It felt like being impeded from swimming because Something has grabbed your big toe — like, say, a marine feral pig. Or, as I still insist, in real life — I mean, off-blog, wart hog.
EvilClanger is a genius, btw.
July 30, 2008 at 6:09 am
Anyway . . . I’d have thought that any admissions to NBB here would be wasted. B-b-b. . but . . .you don’t mean that even HE graces this site with his presence, do you? . . . Phewwwwwwwwwww, as the great one said . . . In that case, a deep bow/curtsey from me. You’re the dogstrollocks, alright.
July 30, 2008 at 6:18 am
wordnerd – If you give me more details of the problems you had posting, I’ll raise it on the WP forums….and if anyone else has, or has had, problems, please let me know….
July 30, 2008 at 6:35 am
Oh, and Frances: Have I read the Potter books? No, of course not….nor have I wikied them….not really my thing….I’m presently reading JG Farrell: “The Singapore Grip”….which is a strange book….Sam J blogged on his more famous Krishnapur novel not long ago; must check to see whether TSG was mentioned there….I’ve had the book for a couple of years & only realised when I opened it a few days ago that I hadn’t yet read it; or if I have, my mind’s in worse shape than I thought….
July 30, 2008 at 8:19 am
dgg, . . . I thought The Singapore Grip magnificent; Krishnapur underwhelming. Those are clear recollections of my reactions of more than twenty years ago, but I can’t remember details of plots or stories.
Symptoms of the digimalaise: couldn’t, as I said, type anything into a comment box — the hourglass saying WAIT refused to go away for perhaps the whole 15 minutes that I struggled with the problem not just on- but offline, which made me wonder whether some rather complex programme mightn’t have been downloaded. While this was happening, other windows and programmes in my machine would only open so slowly that you’d think that they were drugged. . . On the other hand, my antivirus software did not find any perp on its list of known villains, which is why I wondered about commercial intelligence-gathering.
Btw, the information I found about the Trojan said that it’s usually sitting in banner ad scripts.
July 30, 2008 at 8:21 am
I don’t think Sam mentioned TSG, cs, a book I must confess I’d never heard of. Let me know what you think of it.
Re: Potter, after my 7 year-old daughter declared the Potter books “silly”, I had no incentive to read them. Why would I? My kids loved the Pullman books, however, and I read them to see why and saw why.
July 30, 2008 at 8:28 am
I meant to add to ‘whether some rather complex programme mightn’t have been downloaded’ . . . or if the digital equivalent of a giant suction hose wasn’t hoovering up everything stored in this computer.
If WP is engaged in ‘data harvesting’, as I think it’s known, would they necessarily admit to it? . . . Or am I being paranoid?
July 30, 2008 at 8:52 am
Doggerelist,
Right this is a get back at me because I can’t do puzzles.
Google ‘moaning myrtle’ and ’slug club’, a couple of yours from memory (alright not called myrtle, here, but you get the gist), follow up the other references I made, then tell me you don’t know what I’m talking about. Can’t believe a word any of you say. Knew that, why do you think I bought along my own friends?
Wordnerd 26. Are you asking if I can count? To three, yes! Are you related to Ern Malley?
I suggest Parallaxview spot who acted each part; then obooki can see what character you played Parall..and lets not forget drop-bys like Des.
ps. Or maybe it was Melton who had the slugs….
July 30, 2008 at 9:19 am
for a very funny viral video that’s making the rounds:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/07/29/new-viral-video-gives-mcc_n_115727.html
Be afraid, be very afraid…
July 30, 2008 at 9:19 am
Oh and Mishari,
I had no trouble recognising you once I read up on the Half Blood Prince; well Voldemort and the other characters you morphed into, e.g. such savory types like De Sade….
July 30, 2008 at 9:30 am
Hi Frances, I’m only me, I’ve never been anyone else and I treat each name in accordance with their persona. Honestly, I can’t be arsed with any intrigue on who is who because I don’t see it altering my responses to the words the identity emits. I prefer the stability of an on-line personality so that you get to know and respect them. I come here because I like the people.
I do remember you as sapient(correct me if I’m wrong) from Cif, you’re up in Queensland aren’t you? I always picture you with your laptop, sitting on a cane chair beneath bogainvillia.
Keep well.
July 30, 2008 at 9:40 am
Thanks parallax,
Yes I was sapient, interesting to see the derivatives for Minerva!
I need the other admissions or denials, so I will wait before I sum up…
Yes, I live in the Smart State. Laptop, new a year ago, sat in cupboard, so far not used.
btw, how’s ‘Doesnotexist’ these days?
July 30, 2008 at 9:51 am
Like parallax, I am gravelled about identity games. I was never any good at hide and seek. I always know mishari if he’s there because of his Yellow Hat, and I know why he uses diff names. But I just stick to the same name all the time. Bad enough trying to remember who I am, so at least one part of the brain can be left undisturbed. And don’t get me on to passwords.
July 30, 2008 at 9:54 am
‘Thanks parallax,
Yes I was sapient,’
Huh, so parallax gets a straight answer but I don’t. And since Iamnothere said _she_ used to be sapient. . . well, well, well, I think I can work things out for myself . . . See if I share any spit-roasted feral porker with you, Frances!
July 30, 2008 at 9:55 am
What’s the point to all these multiple IDs? Apart from the mishari “getting round a ban” defence, I think it’s just silly. And, like freep, I have enough trouble remembering one password as it is.
July 30, 2008 at 9:55 am
‘Bad enough trying to remember who I am, so at least one part of the brain can be left undisturbed.’
Well said, and I couldn’t agree more warmly.
July 30, 2008 at 9:56 am
. . . though I do think there’s probably a strong positive correlation between ID count and imagination.
July 30, 2008 at 10:07 am
WN7: nobody will ever accuse you of lacking imagination.
July 30, 2008 at 10:19 am
Until I got banned, it never ocured to me to use any name but my real one. And in my defence, I’d point out that I never make the slightest effort to disguise my real identity: on the contrary.
In fact, I’ve always been deeply uncomfortable with the whole anonymity thing, regarding it, rightly or wrongly, as a kind of unwillingness to stand up and be counted, something I’ve never had any marked problems with. GU is, by the way, the only place on-line where I don’t use my real name.
July 30, 2008 at 10:27 am
Despite all the speculation, my name is not legion….I find little enough to say on GU as cynicalsteve, without having to find words for a whole Goon Show full of characters….and if all this is just a roundabout way of accusing me of being NBB, then you’re nuts; I’d never be so offensive to Parisa and fortunately she knows that….
July 30, 2008 at 10:28 am
Oh my!
Seems Wordnerd you have failed to read many of my comments; no matter.
Billy re clerihews, sorry I find very boring.
For those that have contributed an answer, here’s a fillin for the present, one Billy that I had made for your last blog, but didn’t submit;
it is about gramma
Gramma Is Coming to Town
Gramma is coming to town
Tell all the people in the land
Happy now, bring out the band
And all sing, sing, sing
Chorus: You better watch out
You better laugh not cry
Gramma is coming to town
She’ll start at Picadilly
With the red and extend
Florescent paint is the blend
Be sure she don’t bend, bend, bend
Chorus:
Not sure how much postage required
Weight to be determined by buyer
Insurance has likely expired
But we’ll send, send, send
Chorus:
Fish net stockings the trend
Short skirt high hem
What a sight to greet a friend
But we’ll lend, lend, lend
Chorus:
Check out her walking cane
Head shrunk – wig bad fit
Refuses to snuggle and sit
But she’ll be a friend, friend, friend
Chorus: You better watch out
You better laugh not cry
Gramma is coming to town
ps. Wordnerd (43)/Billy (44); what’s an ID count?
July 30, 2008 at 10:34 am
Oh and please all, don’t get worried, it’s just that there is a point I wish to make.
July 30, 2008 at 10:44 am
Grammar is coming to town;
Adverb, adjective, verb and noun;
The mis-use of any will be met wih brute force,
By which I mean the guillotine, of course.
July 30, 2008 at 10:45 am
and before I forget Wordnerd,
you have to be careful with feral pork; loads of worms, if I recall correctly; don’t recommend eating.
Co-ordinator of Stock Control was very excited to hear that feral pigs existed so close, actually within the City domains of one million. Visited, showed me fox tracks, confirmed feral pigs’ diggings and existence; his answer?
well he left me with a diagram for the building of a pig trap/enclosure, explained that they would need to be domesticated for some time….
July 30, 2008 at 10:56 am
For what it’s worth, my in-laws have an old hunting lodge in the Vosges, where one of the favourite Fall/Winter pursuits is hunting the sanglier, (wild boar). I’ve never heard of any problems with trichinosis, which in any case, is eliminated by proper cooking. It is mainly prevalant in domestic pigs which are fed offal and rotten meat, a practice now outlawed in Europe and the US.
July 30, 2008 at 11:08 am
“For what it’s worth?”
Exactly, Mishari!
However do note your last sentence, re ‘a practice now outlawed in Europe and the US’; what I quoted, was said a number of years ago.
July 30, 2008 at 11:25 am
“Cif runs Javascript; WP doesn’t allow it,” – well, yes, it does, as does pretty much every webpage you’re likely to come across, because it’s too useful a language to ignore. – But Javascript isn’t an evil in itself; it’s the people and organisations who use it maliciously.
Yes, when I posted my second comment above, immediately after the first (#8, #9), your website told me to slow down and think about things awhile.
July 30, 2008 at 12:13 pm
Going back to the subject, I find it increasingly difficult to comment on these Booker threads anyway. What can I say? I have (as far as I can figure) only read 2 books that were even shortlisted for the Booker (Golding’s Rites of Passage, and Burgess’ Earthly Powers). I’ve had a “go” at a few others. So the argument that my opinion is just prejudice and I don’t know what I’m talking about is difficult to defend – though on the whole, I feel my act of not reading them is entirely a rational act; and reading them is only likely to convince me of literary views already held (as well as being an unbearable experience).
July 30, 2008 at 12:21 pm
ah yes, of course, my ‘fractured personality shoulder shrug’ tacitly recognised as exempt mishari’s circumstances. We were pre-warned and informed to look out for the jazz associated moniker – and anyway mishari’s wit is unique and cannot be replicated
Frances, i last saw Doesnotexist a week or so ago on a Cif thread trying to explain why Australians parody the expression “please explain.” I think in the end he resorted to a wiki-link as it was too convoluted to lay out the history behind Ms Hanson and what she epitomised.
I’ve always enjoyed virtually bumping into Doesnotexist – apparently he’s a librarian in (i think country not urban) Victoria. A librarian, now that’s a good resource to have on tap – perhaps cs can entice him over to the pavilion
July 30, 2008 at 12:30 pm
DNE & I have exchanged friendly words on Cif before….indeed I believe he even wrote a neat limerick about me once….
July 30, 2008 at 12:40 pm
parallax,
as a diversion, just competed a short story; (at first wasn’t sure whether a novel;) three authors, started off doing a paragraph a piece. Looked like being a penny dreadful, well both the others were very weighed down with commitments; the ending to me is great, sliced by one of the other two with their overloaded! All credit to the last contributor, told her we should submit; “oh no, she exclaimed – it is dreadful” suspect she is correct, but great travelling company.
Oh sorry, why my diversion to this? Well the closure made, by the Librarian.
July 30, 2008 at 12:53 pm
mein gott – you mean …. I may be misreading your train of thought … that you collaborate with Doesnotexist? or that one of your co-authors is, as it happens, a librarian.
You’ll have to bear with me F, until I’m in sync with the way your synapses work
July 30, 2008 at 1:12 pm
Sorry parallax,
The librarian is female and not doesnotexist; well I think not, she is from Q’ld; known to a very close friend for some thirty years.
I apologize, the comments were merely a diversion.
To be blunt, neither I or my friends, seek literary acknowledgement, we exist incognito.
July 30, 2008 at 1:33 pm
Ah … ok, if you enjoy the creative process then that in itself is fulfilling. Literary acknowledgement (as i think you know – i remember you mentioning publication of your work in the past?) can be either/both a bonus and a burden.
July 30, 2008 at 1:42 pm
Mish, I’ve only just ventured back onto PoTW thread (still trying to de-blinker myself, so I can read the words not the context) to see a comment deleted. What happened?
July 30, 2008 at 2:37 pm
Copyright issue, para. I quoted from Noel Coward’s Don’t Let’s Be Beastly to the Germans…I guess they discovered that although I’d marked it as being ‘from etc’, in fact I’d quoted almost the whole thing. Shame, really. It’s very funny. Oh, well.
July 30, 2008 at 4:48 pm
once more, schlep for Man – is very funny cs, hope something crops up on the booksblog that grabs you. I’m off for a while – see you in a couple of weeks.
May the clerihews reach 400.
cheers
July 30, 2008 at 8:05 pm
Parallax,
No, I do not seek publication and I’m realistic enough to know that as far as creative writers, there are many, many out there; in fact some extremely innovative ones. There is a little of my work in private or small publications; not submitted, but done on offer/request. I like to try things, I like to delve into subject matter, out of interest and then move on to something else. I love the freedom I have to take up, then to let go if I wish.
Gramma says I should not have said she was going to England; she, like me, only does things on a whim! We both hate timetables. So I’ve now done it, it will take her some time to get the urge to travel again, because I’ve now made it look -planned.
July 30, 2008 at 11:29 pm
Dear Frances, of course I read them, I just don’t necessarily understand them, . . . nor, sometimes, your always stimulating Antipodean perspective. And as you haven’t granted me permission for okookiing, I’m unlikely to make any progress with comprehension, am I? . . . No worries, though (see, I do speak a little Strine) — I enormously enjoy the Frances/sapient posts I can grock.
dgg, ‘without having to find words for a whole Goon Show full of characters….’
Couldn’t agree more, and one could so easily end up being all-goon — if, for example, the wind changed and one got stuck.
But NBB, whoever he is, was only giving as well as he got. It was clear from her merry barbecueing of several GU comrades that Parisa’s no hothouse flower, and not averse to a bit of potty humour herself, much as she criticised NBB for it — and repeatedly. The acidity quotient in her fight with him zoomed skyward after she posted her lines about the buzzing fly — which I read exactly as NBB did, before he replied to it.
July 30, 2008 at 11:47 pm
Wordy,
It’s all plain to me; I don’t know how much more transparent I can be.
Perhaps it’s like counting, I got to three,,I know I could count further…but is it necessary..
Same surely, if one wished to understand….
July 30, 2008 at 11:48 pm
A little goes a long way with clerihews….
Followed a link to this doggerel thread, via the Tel book blog….it’s a bit hit’n'miss, but not utterly without redemption….even plugged, although having read other stuff there, rather wish now I hadn’t….
http://nielsenhayden.com/makinglight/archives/010450.html
July 31, 2008 at 12:39 am
Douce Antipodean,
‘I got to three,,I know I could count further’
Not quite . . . but just more comma, and you’re there.
‘Same surely, if one wished to understand….’
One wishes very much to understand — and to be sapient, if not quite in the same league as you. I have heard of Icarus, you see.
dgg, no time to peep where that link leads, at present — and I assume that it’s anyway technical stuff for pome club members.
July 31, 2008 at 12:42 am
I meant . . . just ONE more comma, and you’re there
July 31, 2008 at 1:17 am
cs! Epochal news! Yet another fucking Booker blog!
It’s beginnning to resemble a cockroach infestation.
I’ve told Laura Barton, (for it is she), what I think. Making new friends. It’s what I’m about.
July 31, 2008 at 1:40 am
And each of these Booker blogs is just a gossipy reaction to the list (sorry: The List)….each could have been a lowly comment on one of the other blogs….this latest blog leaves me none the wiser about the book it attempts to promote, except that Some People are pleased that it’s on The List; although it does, to be fair, also report that Some Other People aren’t….
July 31, 2008 at 2:12 am
Yeah, the tension is nigh on unendurable. The slightest snore could shatter the mood.
July 31, 2008 at 2:37 am
Apropos of nothing much – when Michele finally got round to reading this post, and I asked her what she thought of the title; she groaned and punched me (in jest, I think….)
July 31, 2008 at 3:26 am
Another non sequitur – mentioned in Farrells “The Singapore Grip” is icecream flavoured with mango and durian….can anyone confirm this really exists/existed (the book is set in the 1930s/40s)?
July 31, 2008 at 4:05 am
Wordy,
You mean can I count to three,,,
how’s that. Want to test me on four????
I tried entering a number of user names, I’m sure I entered my favourite – tranquility; but to no avail. I had an old dictionary, a Collins 1958, reprinted edition 1974.
Re: Sapient. I had always admired Solomon. It listed Sapient n. wise (usually ironic). Well! That really appealed.
(Why did/do they mess with the meaning of words?)
I had always accepted that any wisdom is not mine; but how to explain that, became the problem.
“Oh, so you think you’re wise, do you?”
Boy have I purchased some dictionaries since!
July 31, 2008 at 6:49 am
‘You mean can I count to three,,,
how’s that. Want to test me on four????’
I haven’t the faintest didactic impulse, Frances — my many faults lie in other directions — but if that weren’t true I’d say that you were a dream pupil.
You’ve shown me that you already know four — from that impressive lineup of interrogatory hooks. Now for proof of being able to go as far as five, how about sending me the right number of fingers – from one hand or two? No, . . . not a cannibal . . . honestly, . . . I’ll just send them right back once you’ve passed your test.
And about one of your more cryptic messages. Cooked pork has worms, I think you said — or perhaps it was that Co-ordinator of Stock Control making eyes at you who said so. You put the hearsay in a post in the vain hope of being able to put me off my grand porker fest — just because I said I couldn’t invite you, as punishment for discriminating against me and in parallax’s favour. [sniff] . . . Well, I read about a month ago that the trendiest treatment for chromic allergy sufferers is to have worms introduced into their bodies in special clinics in Mexico, at vast expense. That’s because the US government hasn’t yet approved the treatment.
Not hallucinating, I promise. Since I’m not sure you’re interested – even thought this is far less boring than those interminable Booker blogs at GU-goo – I’m only going to tell you about this briefly and from memory. It seems that once these parasites get into you, they turn off your body’s burglar alarms to make sure you don’t eject them. I mean that they make themselves at home by stopping any histamine reaction dead in its tracks. . . Not to teach gramma to suck eggs or anything, if she’s reading this with you, but allergy sufferers have over-excitable burglar alarms that simply won’t stop clanging.
So just tell Mr Google-Eyes who thinks he knows everything that worms are in, in every sense. If people could be infested just by chewing on a feral oink ear, why would they bother to pay for the privilege at these faraway clinics?
Then you said people jeer at you, ‘“Oh, so you think you’re wise, do you?”’ . . . Is that why you’ve switched to being plain Frances in your scream name?
. . . dgg, Michele was probably only trying to give you a fist bump – like Michelle . . . or Sarko.
July 31, 2008 at 9:46 am
I hope you’ll forgive me, cs, but I couldn’t resist copying and pasting Once More, Shlep…(into LB’s latest Booker non-article. It just perfectly skewers the whole silly business so much better than I could and deserved wider reading. Sorry.
July 31, 2008 at 11:08 am
Listen Wordy et al,
I know I am out of my league, but I do not blush, well at least not on the recognition of my limited learning. I generally now don’t bother to change thoughtless spelling, mistakes in syntax and incorrect tenses etc., yes ultimately I do see them, because they are either typos or what I now accept as latent dyslexia; and am unconcerned with the knowledge that in many ways I am thick.
However stuff that I see as very easy, simple and merely common sense, I hear people describe as cryptic?
The worms though in the pigs were merely that, not a message needing deciphering. Just because the rest of you load words with double meanings, I plead for you to be kind sometimes to the slow among you.
There were no special favours given in understanding or relay of information to parralaxview, he had followed how I’d morphed. Ripley’s – It has been openly stated along the way; although I had not intended to mark the change in username from cif to the books blog. Dropin..where are you?
July 31, 2008 at 11:25 am
‘he had followed how I’d morphed. Ripley’s – It has been openly stated along the way;’
Ah thanks, Frances. We’ve got that sorted now.
. . . I am complaining, over at the other place, about bloggers who never answer. Really don’t see why we should bother to comment if they don’t. You and dgg are models of responsiveness, Frances.
July 31, 2008 at 1:20 pm
I may be a model of responsiveness, but I still haven’t asked WP about the problems you (& obooki)had posting here….I’ll hang fire until and unless there are more issues, I think….and if the problem’s so severe that it prevents anyone posting at all, they can always email me directly via the contact button in the RH column….
July 31, 2008 at 1:39 pm
There is one topic that leaves me even colder than the Booker. And now there’s a blog on it, too.
July 31, 2008 at 2:11 pm
To be fair, Ruppin’s piece just outlines some forthcoming books with a common theme – which in this case just happens to be (very, very loosely) 9/11….apparently this is the first in a series by booksellers….and he does at least try to say something about each book mentioned….I didn’t think it was a bad piece given its remit….
July 31, 2008 at 2:37 pm
It’s not a bad article at all, it’s just that the topic makes me glaze over, I’m afraid.
July 31, 2008 at 2:58 pm
Come on, BM. Americans died. We all have to be interested.
July 31, 2008 at 4:12 pm
….and another Booker blog appears….(henceforth they’ll be known as Boogers)….in which the doughty Ms Doughty helpfully informs us that Some Authors are pleased that their books have made The List; whereas Some Other Authors are disappointed….one gains so much insight from GU these days; it’s a philosophical fount….
July 31, 2008 at 4:35 pm
This one’s the best so far. Intolerably smug yet repulsively self-satisfied.
July 31, 2008 at 11:25 pm
”.one gains so much insight from GU these days; it’s a philosophical fount….”
one gains so much insight about the Boogers these days from GU-goo; it’s turning into philosophical poo-poo
________________
Guys, guys, heyyyyyy! Just practicing the new lingo – cuil! That’s from cuil.com. Name of great new search engine with PICTURES that come up with some answers. Might just sock it to Google, which is where the cuil founders learned to jiggy wid it. Try looking up your screen name in it and you’ll see what I mean.
August 1, 2008 at 12:02 am
A search for “cynicalsteve” on cuil seems to bring up lots of Guardian threads (natch), even more sites that have copied Guardian threads, a few splogs which have incorporated odd phrases of mine – but no mention whatsoever of this site….doesn’t sound like much of a search engine to me….
August 1, 2008 at 2:48 am
I read about cuil somewhere – it was created by disaffected staff from google. Same results as steve. – If I put in a writer’s name, it brings back places where I can buy his books and people who own them on librarything. What I would like from a search engine is a site where I can remove commercial sites from my search and actually find what I’m looking for. Doesn’t seem to like wiki much either, or amazon – which is fair enough, if it brought back anything more interesting.
August 1, 2008 at 3:11 am
Actually I note there are a number of Iamnothere-(s) on cuil, but that isn’t surprising; very few people are!
Most of my stuff luckily doesn’t show anywhere; I have it.
Can you keep up Wordy?
My ‘Scream’ name? I’d love to think that applied under the Australian meaning.
I realise that the pigs and foxes could be a great fable.
Now what I am hoping to show via my drawn out nonsense, is my way of telling the story of ‘free will’. Actually Steve I remember Boltonian’s blog start – (see his metaphysics site mentioned under doggerelist’s lineup.) He has an up and running open blog page on ‘Free Will’ still in place, I think.
Don’t know who was around then, but when I had the name Sapient, I had a would be acquaintance who turned up briefly, on CIF with the username LunaticSapient (no, Wordy, not one of my nondeplumes). He/she was one of the early contributors to Boltonian’s site, (unsure whether still in archives there); said was very much looking forward to my attendance and would be delighted if I graced with my presence (sorry my words). I think at first Boltonian answered, thinking it was me. Actually Boltonian if you do read this, I think one of us was sufficient, I left LunaticSapient, he/she got there first. BTW Boltonian your site is very good, I likely would have had to throw around a few jokes.
WoolyMinded…asked if I was the Sapient of Richard Dawkins site…jings, these pen-names could get me into strife; but I reiterate I, in any form, have only been on two sites. I have always identified who comes under my umbrella.
I think Mishari does also (well I think most/some times?)
Sorry haven’t got to the part on freewill.
Scatterbrain, now why didn’t I remember to post as such? That’s alright, I can fix right now!
August 1, 2008 at 8:53 am
Really cuil photo of a me I’ve never met right here:
http://www.cuil.com/search?q=%22billy+mills%22
August 1, 2008 at 9:25 am
Jesus, Bill, you’ve aged fast, although I must admit, the bow-tie is a nice touch…
August 1, 2008 at 9:54 am
Elegant, and matured rather than aged, if you must.
August 1, 2008 at 6:53 pm
I’ll make this short so you can all get back to your sports or whatever man talk you wish.
It appears that no one has read Harry Potter, yet the similarities in terms I have quoted here, and there are others, surely are seen.
I believe our unconscious can tap in and pick up all things known to man. To me imagination works from this realm as does intuition.
Wordy you said you work on ink blots, a pattern of thought.
I feel there is a tendency for psychologists, analysts etc. to subscribe to studied reactions of mankind in a given situation – a pattern of cause and effect. This to me disallows the existence of free will; it is only the animal instinct, which is predictable. The rational conscious human being can take a broader view and look not just at personal inclinations but at a wider picture, many times of course they do follow the instinctive pattern.
BTW I believe over time I did distinguish in posts between what was real and what was imagination. However there is one thing I need to correct:
Gramma has a full head of hair with very little grey, her cane is not for walking; but she is not providing a photo for cuil.
August 1, 2008 at 8:07 pm
I reckon if you put the GU photo of Billy through one of those pieces of software that predicts how people age, you’ll end up with something not dissimilar to that cuil pic….
August 2, 2008 at 7:09 am
Frances/frances/sapient/Iamnothere/Iant/Scatterbrain:
‘Scatterbrain, now why didn’t I remember to post as such? That’s alright, I can fix right now!’
And how does the dear old noddle feel now? Still clinking, as if something in it has come loose? . . . Sorry, I meant, is on the loose. . . . And don’t be such a tease, Fransapbrain — you shouldn’t be trying to compete with dgg; couldn’t, no matter how hard you tried. . . I don’t see why I should have to coax Strine connotations of ’scream name’ out of you, it’s not civilised to burden me with that . . . Why don’t you torment your dear parallax instead? . . .
. . . All cuil critics: my impressions exactly. Like obooki, I’ve seen this new engine mentioned here and there. I wish cuil had put off releasing it until they’d refined their algorithms. I don’t know what the bubblehead minion of Michael Rosen’s was trying to tell us, but I wonder if we haven’t been playing with a beta version of an attempt to merge Google’s text and image sniffers into a single tool. . . Would be nice to see the right faces next to people’s names — eventually, . . . I suppose.
Must confess that I love the look and layout of their search result pages. Yes I know, judging by appearances, . . . scandalous id’nit.
Don’t know if anyone else has noticed but sackofstones in back at the other place, after an absence of at least six moons, and once again writing more than his/her fair share of interesting posts. The one on semiotics made me wonder whether it’s a subject that could be part of this blogger’s day job.
August 2, 2008 at 7:49 am
wordnerd – Michele keeps reminding me to thank you from her for the glass link a few days ago….too tired to make sensible comment on other matters after only two hours sleep….on this of all days….
August 2, 2008 at 7:17 pm
ah shucks, wordnerd..
August 2, 2008 at 11:34 pm
Is there any poem that you guys reckon to be unparodiable? Not in the sense of being a challenge, nor in the sense of being so bad that it can’t be made worse; just whether there are poems that are too classic to be messed with; those that it would be sacrilegious to so do.
I ask because I have an idea, but don’t want to ruffle feathers in vain….
August 2, 2008 at 11:47 pm
cs: quite hard to parody a shaksp sonnet, I suspect. Most others I can think of are less difficult. Any English poem 1700 – 1900 quite easy to mince up and have fun with and leave the author recognisable. Not sure about free verse after 1950.
August 3, 2008 at 12:00 am
I meant rather in the sense of those that it would be unpopular to desecrate….”fatwah” potentiality if you will…. and not because parody might offend religious sensibilities, but aesthetic ones….
August 3, 2008 at 12:06 am
steve: maybe the answer is the same. Since the bard has more respect than any other writer, a parody of, say, his sonnets will raise less amusement than any other. Others who might come near are Blake in Songs of Innocence. You could parody them, but they have a degree of naivety that means it might not work at all. I think innocent wisdom may be what you’re looking for?
August 3, 2008 at 12:18 am
V. glad that your glasslass liked the link; more to say on that later.
. . . not replying, yet, to Frances or anyone else; just a quick answer to dgg’s good question about the unparodiable . . .
‘too classic to be messed with; those that it would be sacrilegious to so do.’
+
‘I meant rather in the sense of those that it would be unpopular to desecrate….”fatwah” potentiality if you will’
This one, . . . because it was the first thing that came to mind as an answer; because the part of it that I understand is about all that makes life bearable, and probably because I crave the reassurance in it; because the lines I’m not sure I understand set me to wondering, pleasurably . . . But naughty doggerelist, I suspect that nothing’s sacred to thou.
PISAN CANTOS
LXXXI
~ Ezra Pound
What thou lovest well remains,
the rest is dross
What thou lov’st well shall not be reft from thee
What thou lov’st well is thy true heritage
Whose world, or mine or theirs
or is it of none?
First came the seen, then thus the palpable
Elysium, though it were in the halls of hell,
What thou lovest well is thy true heritage
What thou lov’st well shall not be reft from thee.
August 3, 2008 at 12:20 am
That perhaps explains why a previous parody of Sonnet 18 went down like a lead balloon hereabouts….
Oh well, I’ll go ahead anyway (it’s not Shakespeare in mind this time) and see what results….it won’t be the first piece to get spiked, if that’s how I feel on completion….
August 3, 2008 at 12:33 am
‘Oh well, I’ll go ahead anyway’
My, my, how uncharacteristic!
But perhaps you’ll let us judge about the spiking? I can boo really well, as I’m sure you didn’t know . . .
Btw, what was so special about the day that just ended in BST?
August 3, 2008 at 12:35 am
Comment #104 was in reply to freepoland….crossed with wordnerd’s….and yes: I can see how playing with such intense pieces (such as LXXXI, which I haven’t read in toto; although I have a more substantial extract on paper in front of me now) could cause offence….interesting how we all have different sacred cows….I suspect this would make a fascinating GU blog, although I’m not remotely knowledgeable enough to write it and am happy to pass the baton to anyone who is….
August 3, 2008 at 12:37 am
“Btw, what was so special about the day that just ended in BST?”
*Fwoof* (blows out imaginary candles on an imaginary cake….)
August 3, 2008 at 6:30 am
Ohhhhhhhhhh………H A P P Y B I R T H D A Y, dear doggerelist, & *M-*A*-*N*-*Y* HAPPY RETURNS . . . mmmmwah! mmmmmmmmwah!
… This seems a fitting commemoration of the weekend at trollocksville: it seems as if we’re scooping the Observer on this site . . .
=====
The Google Killer engine has arrived … er, no it hasn’t
* John Naughton, the networker
* The Observer,
* Sunday August 3 2008
[. . .] So many people were taken in by this that when cuil.com finally opened for business the site was swamped. When one finally got to it, the first reaction was incredulity that anyone could have taken the hype seriously: in search after search Cuil delivered results that can only be described as weird. It delivers a ragbag of hits, arranged in a columnar format, and with no obvious rationale behind its rankings.[. . .]
http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2008/aug/03/google =========
Of course John Naughton doesn’t appear to have considered the possibility that it _is_ a good product, but released prematurely, . . . & that cuil might be trying to combine images & text in a way Google hasn’t been able to, . . . as I suggested earlier.
On the other hand, it could be the Chauncey Gardiner of the search engine world. . .
. . . Still can’t reply to other posts, . . . too much going on . . . will as soon as I can.
Erm, dgg, please don’t mention how old, now to Frances. Could be very embarrassing for her. I am quite sure she can’t count that far.
August 3, 2008 at 6:33 am
sigh. I meant, please don’t mention how old, now, to Frances …… beastly comma scuttled away before I could catch it.
August 4, 2008 at 2:24 am
Wordnerd 7/rabbitfooey/massspect…/and others?
You raise questions on ID? and never declare?
August 4, 2008 at 2:31 am
I failed to continue,
to a stirrer, who would hide behind, appear to build up …cause dissension ….for what purpose?
August 4, 2008 at 10:00 am
Quit it lse and right now. Want me reporting you to the boss? Michael said it was like, *ba-aad* Interweb manners okay, to peck at folkses IDs. If you have to link my name to any blogperson’s to play your dumbo games please not wn7, anyone but that [[[[bore]]]]] and not that Big Mouth either – please – okay pretty puhleeeze?!
August 4, 2008 at 10:53 am
Oh,
little rabbit, who is Michael, who is the boss – surely all posters have a right to know!!
Are you the boss, doggerelist?
August 4, 2008 at 11:02 am
Surely you (no, doggerelist, I do not mean you, nor for that matter, freep. mishari, melton…) are not trying to pass this off on Des!
August 4, 2008 at 11:52 am
Rushdie says, re his personal bodyguard: “It is an obscenity to suggest that I asked people to leave the room so that I could have sex with my girlfriend.” – Presumably we must believe that they remained in the room then.
August 4, 2008 at 4:06 pm
Hmmmm….seems like most are on holiday….and those of us that aren’t are suffering from literary (and doggerelistic) ennui….
August 4, 2008 at 5:18 pm
Yes, it’s been curiously quiet. Only 4 comments all day on GU too, from 4 articles. I refrained from saying I find Solzhenitsyn boring – it didn’t seem like the right moment.
August 4, 2008 at 6:56 pm
I wonder how many have actually read Solzhenitsyn? I tried, but gave up. He was necessary, but not very readable.
Totally unconnected, this amused me:
http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/peter_robins/blog/2008/08/04/on_becoming_a_blurb
August 4, 2008 at 8:03 pm
Yes, an interesting piece. I’m sure though that they realised he writes about books for the Telegraph and is just not some random blogger. Still, we live in hope. – Suddenly today I had 19 referrals from some sort of news aggregator (I can’t find the link when I go there myself, so I don’t even know which post it refers to or what I’m doing right) – making it the single biggest source so far in August by a long way.
August 5, 2008 at 9:20 am
Finally snapped this morning when doing the usual trawl of news, sport & culcha….decided never again to use the G – at least until they sort out their software….having to wait 20 seconds or so on each main page whilst the bloody thing loads its extraneous software just isn’t on….it was quite refreshing (Ha!) to find one can start scrolling practically immediately on the Times, Tel & Indie….will stick for the moment with GU books – but if & when they switch over to the dreadful Cif software without dealing with the speed issue, I’m off….
August 5, 2008 at 10:38 am
I don’t know if that last post disappeared. Anyhow, it was along the lines: if you’re using Firefox you can block flash quite easily, either with the attached download; or before i seem to remember doing it by adding 2 lines of code to some file somewhere:
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/433
August 5, 2008 at 11:19 am
Huge problems today loading pages, submitting comments, and viewing new comments. I wish they’d sort it out.
August 5, 2008 at 11:49 am
Why do reviewers resort to words like luminous to describe books? Why use such a stupid fucking word when what you mean is simple prose? Is it meant to make the reader feel intelligent? Does it make the writer look intelligent? Luminous, even? Except surely luminous is not a luminous word? And why the fuck do they call novels / novelists intelligent? Like, when was the last time they celebrated a stupid novelist? Shouldn’t intelligence be taken for granted, and only commented upon when absent? And why – oh why oh why oh why – do Faber & Faber insist on delivering every Oirish novel they publish today with a back-of-book blurb from the Booker-nominated Sebastian Barry? He’s a nice guy, but they’re turning him into a rent-a-quote. With the Tour de France over and the Olympic track events looking boring (all the medals look like they’re going to be down to tear-shaped nuts and magic skin suits – though with Romero copying the iconic Annie Liebowitz piccie of a nude LA (who brought a whole new meaning to “what a ride”), somehow I don’t think what the cyclists are wearing is going to excite too many people and fill the column inches) these are the things that are occupying my mind after having spent a long weekend stuck with a new Oirish novel with a back-of-book-blurb from Barry and described variously as ‘intelligent’ and ‘luminous.’ Christ but I miss that bike race already. It saved me from reading stupid novels for a whole month.
Anyway, next on my reading list: Aleksander Hemon’s new one. I hope to have it read before some twat does it in the Gruan and notes the use of photos and credits Austerlitz with the birth of this multi-media approach to the novel.
August 5, 2008 at 12:09 pm
Luminous, according to Chambers, means “clear” or “lucid” (as well as the obvious alternative), so maybe it’s not such a dumb word….of course, reviewers *could* say “lucid” if they mean “lucid”….anyway, if Chas is right, every other non-pristine book probably glows in the dark as well….
August 5, 2008 at 12:35 pm
Perhaps they meant numinous – “the intense feeling of unknowingly knowing that there is something which cannot be seen.”
Just like when we watch the cycling at the Olympics, we shouldn’t praise the winner for being “fast”. When was the last time they celebrated a “slow” cyclist? When does the Olympics start anyway?
August 5, 2008 at 12:49 pm
Not sure when the O’s begin, but I’m really looking forward to the coxless novel-writing, the poetathon, and the mixed doggerels….
August 5, 2008 at 12:57 pm
They did have those events of course, even as recently as 1898. – I was thinking this morning, reading Aeneid V on the train (the games section – specifically rowing, as it happens) how it would be amusing to write a parodic epic of the Olympics in the same style. (Maybe I could work on one during the Olympics).
Perhaps we could come up with some comemorative doggerel too for our Olympic winners?
August 5, 2008 at 1:02 pm
Opening ceremony on Friday, I believe. Like the clelbratory doggerel idea, obooki.
Just a thought; wouldn’t luminous prose have a half-life?
August 5, 2008 at 1:09 pm
Steve: I posted this one some months ago:
Bardic Olympiad
You can see the Olympics in old Beijing town
Where the crab and the ibex compete for a crown;
Where a plump Costa Rican will whirl a bright hammer
And protesting Tibetans end up in the slammer.
Yes, plucky Moldova has wrestlers vast,
And Bolivia’s mixed archers will always come last;
At chucking the lump few can better a Finn,
And at synchronised snoring svelte Belgians will win.
Sure as Doomsday the cyclists have techno-chrome pedals,
And shyly, the winners will queue for their medals;
Elated with victory, polite in defeat,
Drugged up to the gunwales, with vile blistered feet.
Now poets, though dull, and far duller than porridge
Live in far stranger worlds, even weirder than Norwich;
Some run from their reason, some swim in deep pools,
Yet others jump high into fancy, the fools.
They don’t have to worry about keeping time,
They’re focussed on diction, on rhythm, on rhyme -
Or modern subversion’s their modus strategic,
An alternative Games for the bards paraplegic.
O Dogg’rel’s a sport better far than leg-labour,
Or bowls for the blind, thugs’ hurdles, girls’ sabre;
Our medals are wooden, they’re cheap and they’re wrong,
Our records we break for the sake of old songs.
Even better, we spit and we fart on each other,
For poets like neither their sister nor brother;
Our athletic invective’s a wild bloody combat
Where the leopard’s false teeth come unstuck in the wombat.
August 5, 2008 at 1:26 pm
“Just like when we watch the cycling at the Olympics, we shouldn’t praise the winner for being ‘fast’.”
Precisely. We actually celebrate classy riders, not fast ones. If fast matter, people would give a fuck about the hour record and time trialling. Speed isn’t the issue. The manner of the victory is.
“When was the last time they celebrated a ’slow’ cyclist?”
Oddly enough, during the Tour, when they was in the final days fierce competition for the lantern rouge.
“the intense feeling of unknowingly knowing that there is something which cannot be seen.”
Look, stop quoting Rumsfield. It’s not big and it’s not clever.
“When does the Olympics start anyway?”
Olympics are Friday / Saturday onwards.
“wouldn’t luminous prose have a half-life?”
I’m not even sure if it has a shelf-life.
Luminous is just one of those bug-bear words. It seems pointless and poncey. Like tome. Some words should only be used by adolescents or ironically. Though even in irony it should only ever be used sparingly.
August 5, 2008 at 1:37 pm
I did wonder about the lantern rouge. The guy in last for a long time, he seemed to come among the last riders on a lot of stages – and threw in an appalling time trial. I thought, why would anyone hire him? – Is cred to be earned in the cycling world from coming last on the tour?
August 5, 2008 at 1:49 pm
It’s about publicity. Getting air-time for your sponsor. Look at the guys who breakaway knowing they can’t stay away. Why do they do that? Cause for the hours they are away, they’re on the telly and their sponsors will love them em. And coming last in the Tour isn’t considered a failure – merely finishing is accepted as an achievement in itself. And with cut-off times – if you don’t finish within x% of the winner’s time, you’re out – it’s not as simple as just riding as slow as you can. And of course it’s accepted that the role of the domestique is to bury themselves when needed and keep just enough in reserve to get home inside the cut-off limit. And the lantern rouge will get a lot of post Tour crits, where he’ll be introduced as the lantern rouge.
August 5, 2008 at 2:08 pm
Luminous may be bad, but it can’t compete with ‘resonance’. Next time I see a poem described as having resonance, I’ll swallow my dentures and die.
August 5, 2008 at 3:25 pm
This – http://wordle.net/create – is brilliant. You’ll need Java on.
August 5, 2008 at 4:13 pm
“Perhaps we could come up with some comemorative doggerel too for our Olympic winners?”
I might, if I can find good rhymes for all those drug names….
August 5, 2008 at 5:39 pm
“if I can find good rhymes for all those drug names”
Team GB are flying the drug-free flag, aren’t they? It’s the damned foreigners you’ve got to worry about. Especially those Russians. Ten out already. That’s just taking the piss.
August 5, 2008 at 7:31 pm
I lost that naive but strangely comforting view that only beastly foreigners cheat some years back….
August 5, 2008 at 7:50 pm
Alas, poor budpowell has been banned. No explanation, although I suspect calling the moderators of Pollyana Toynbee’s MilliVanilliBland Is Labour’s Saviour thread imbeciles might have something to do with it.
@fmk, have you seen this stuff?
http://blog.wired.com/gadgets/2008/07/exclusive-first.html
Apparently, it all works like a dream and Shimano are reknowned for the rigour of their testing regime. Campagnolo are going to follow suit soon.
I cant wait to try this stuff out.
August 5, 2008 at 9:38 pm
Yeah, have heard about it. It was used during the Tour – Gerolsteiner? – and IIRC one of the riders was shown banging his handlebars in frustration as the road went up and his gear wouldn’t change down. Or he may have been banging his bars in frustration simply at the road going up. I dunno.
Henri Desgrange must be spinning in his grave. He always knew there was something iffy with derailleurs.
August 6, 2008 at 5:23 pm
Another slow day, eh? – I like the Tao Lin idea on GU (copied from Telegraph? er… via SA’s blog??) even if it does remind me a bit of The Producers.
August 6, 2008 at 6:37 pm
A slow day all round….here, we’ve finally grasped the nettle and submitted a DMCA on behalf of Michele’s stolen blog posts….I expect we’ve got something wrong somewhere, but at least it’s a start….
If a novelist’s future royalties can be sold on spec (and, yes, I’d previously read the Tel’s report), what price doggerel futures? Maybe I’ll follow that indie band into the Dragons’ Den….
August 7, 2008 at 1:16 am
“Maybe I’ll follow that indie band into the Dragons’ Den….” Yeah why dontcha do just that dude, bin singin’ this fer a coupla days or whenever it was I first seen it: “.doo wah diddy diddy dum diddy doo”. Now that’s what I call songwritin’ know what I’m sayin’? Not like its copycatrighted or nothin’ is it? Reckon Saintly Augustin would give a left and right arm to be able to think up sumpn’ like that for the guy’s dayjob? Also please tell Michele didn;t think I was like, *stealin’* anything coz if you’re like, a buncha *info* on the net, then yer wanna be free ‘n’ all? Everyone knows that right? So don’t go sickin’ no DMCA on me okay? Also sucked up that neck chain she or you posted and am having the pattern recast in like, cast iron for me old head-holder? Was a time when I’d a thought me in a neck accessory would be kinda *sissy* but then I seen that Jordison dude keeps showin up decorated like a Cristmas tree and no one gives a monkey’s if yer kwim. O-kaaaaay. Gotta make tracks. Im outta here.
August 7, 2008 at 9:05 am
It’s very lively on the cricket blogs, it must be said.
August 7, 2008 at 11:18 am
dgg: Very glad indeed that you and Michele are fighting that battle, armed with the DMCA. Let me know if you need reinforcements. (Btw, moderation that led to snipping 142 would be fine with me. What a boor!)
. . . Waiting for an email reply from someone was making me fidgety, so I wandered over to PotW and was shocked to see seven posts in a row from the same blogger — who seems to have written virtually the whole thread.
Must say that since carolru has somehow won tenure at GU, I don’t see why she’s being treated like a cause — or certainly as if she needs a shill. . . Didn’t like the way she snarled at Art Pepper for his excellent post about specialisation.
August 7, 2008 at 1:35 pm
Billy – I bet you’re jumping for joy at the Oirish team making it through to that Twenty20 tourny
August 7, 2008 at 1:49 pm
I am, I am. Great achievement. I hope we have Niall O’Brien and Eoin Morgan back. It’ll be fun, anyway.
August 7, 2008 at 2:35 pm
Is this the team’s most successful run since the Caribbean?
And does HumptyDumpty post on the cricket blogs?
August 7, 2008 at 2:38 pm
Yes, it’s been a bit up and down since the World Cup. And well timed. I think it took a while for the new coach to click in. HumptyDumpty isn’t a regular on the cricket blogs, but an occasional visitor.
August 7, 2008 at 3:31 pm
mish: i know you’re drooling about that new dura-ace e-gear (have you seen the rrp? you may have to sell one of the brats’ kidneys on ebay) but have you ever tried a fixie? it’s like sooo totally de rig these days. and ethical, though in a legal limbo: http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2008/aug/07/healthandwellbeing.ethicalliving
billy: yes, was thinking at the weekend that this was the new coach settling in at last. and certainly it’s a story i preferred over the latest gaa fisticuffs or drogs’ moral victory in kiev.
came across humpty on the cycling stuff over the course of the tour. strange character. weirdly, took a total dislike to me. i can’t possibly fathom how anyone could do that
August 7, 2008 at 6:40 pm
@fmk- Are you kiding me? I live in Whitechapel, just off Brick Lane…we’re talking fixie-central. It’s a trendy/zeitgeist thing, although, obviously, you know that by the time you read about it in the Grauniad, it’s stone-dead.
It was amusing for a couple of years, watching twerps who couldn’t mend a puncture yammering on about ‘cadence’ as I blasted past them on a proper bike.
There’s a bike shop around the corner, owned by a nice Italian girl, that made an absolute killing. She got her brother to buy up literally hundreds of old but high-quality bikes back home in Milan.
He’d drive over with a van load once a month and she’d turn them into fixies, (basically, cutting out the rear drop-out and welding in a new, horizontal one was the most demanding part). She then sold them to dozy local trendies for 7-800 quid.
She and I used to have a good laugh about these kids who’d buy a fixie with no brakes and were constantly coming to grief.
She used to try to convince the poor saps to at least get a single-speed, so they could free-wheel and at least a front-brake, but no, they’d seen NYC bike-couriers on YouTube and they wanted they same thing, forgetting that the NYC guys were expperienced and highly-skilled riders.
The latest thing locally is original Raleigh Choppers. Pitiful, but you have to laugh.
August 7, 2008 at 9:06 pm
Fixies hit Dublin two, three years back. Just about every courier has one. Is funny, cause I was involved with running the track championships over here one year and we had difficulty enough finding enough road guys who’d ever actually ridden a fixie. Different culture over here, we’re actually allowed have mass-start rad races without any hassle from the cops. We don’t have to slipstream down some A-road early of a Sunday morning.
First time I rode one was when I lived over there and used to ride time trials for want of something better to do. One guy in the club I rode with had one and convinced me to try it. You never forget your first time
I think that’s the fifth or sixth article on em I’ve seen the Gruan this year. I love the notion of twats paying over the odds for em – go that girl, I like her attitude. Anyone willing to pay eight hundred quid for one deserves to be made pay that. And more. Can’t wait to see some article in the BMJ by the end of next year noting the rise in hip and knee replacements in forty-somethings suddenly deciding to buy a fixie and realising they haven’t a clue how to ride em.
Fortunately, haven’t seen evidence of a Chopper scene building in Dublin. There was an attempt to import Schwinns but it never took off.
August 8, 2008 at 1:50 am
What’s the odds of Milliband getting a fixie? If Team GB bring home the swag on the track it’d be the perfect way of showing he’s got more balls than Cameron.
August 8, 2008 at 1:52 am
And that Lib Dem prat who got dumped by the cheaky girl, he’ll probably be seen pootering round on a BMX.